Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion Jr. address the State of the Borough at Lehman Center for the Performing Arts.

We should all take time from worrying over the mortgage fiasco and lamenting home foreclosures to sympathize with some Bronx political figures who are grappling with their own serious housing issues.

The former borough president and new federal urban czar, Adolfo Carrión, is being picked on over renovations to his lovely Victorian house on City Island. Pesky Daily News reporters have raised questions about a possible conflict of interest, because the architect Carrion used - and hasn't yet paid - got the beep's backing to develop a large housing project.

How's Carrión supposed to enjoy the view of a sun-draped Long Island Sound from his added-on upper deck when the Bronx District Attorney is looking into it, expanding the probe last week?

Longtime denizen of the House of Representatives Eliot Engel can't get any more tax breaks on his stately house in Maryland. He'd gotten several thousand dollars over the years by claiming it as his primary residence, even while boasting of his Bronxness. A couple of weeks ago, Maryland officials revoked the credit.

Engel's break came to a paltry amount, and Carrión's renovation fees are not a huge sum, when you consider their homes are each worth nearly $1 million.

So, is it worth looking like you're cheating? Or like you think you're above us ordinary taxpaying schmoes?

At a time when we're all infuriated because the Treasury Secretary of the U.S. - the enforcer of the tax code - didn't pay taxes, perception is everything.

Carrión bought the house in 2004. It was formerly Le Refuge, a wonderful French restaurant/bed and breakfast that relocated down City Island Ave.

I had dined a few times in the beautiful old house. In 2007, Carrión gilded the lily with a second-floor deck and front porch that almost mask its elegance.

As long as he was just a Bronx official, no one thought anything of it.

Last week, they reported that the DA is also probing whether Carrión got a significant discount from the contractor. They reported the project's estimated cost was $50,000. Carrión wound up paying less than half the estimate - $24,000.

Carrión could turn out to be an excellent urban czar, if he can keep getting such discounts. Imagine how much money he'll save the government when it's time to rebuild inner cities.

Maryland had offered a tax credit to homeowners who live in the state six months of the year, have a state driver's license and register to vote and file income taxes in the state.

But Engel, a dyed-in-the-wool Bronxite, is registered to vote here and holds a New York driver's license, so tax officials down there revoked his credit - the second time since 2005. Engel fought the first revocation and the credit was reinstated, but when laws were tightened it was revoked again.

Maryland tax officials have said that they don't want the money back from Engel.

"I have never asked for any special privileges for being a congressman," he said.

Engel was just twisting the tax code, just as he did days later, when he signed on as an original co-sponsor of the AIG Taxpayer Protection Act, which would tax those bonuses at a 100% rate. "We can retrieve the taxpayers' money," he said.

He announced that he was outraged to learn AIG paid out $165 million in bonuses with federal funds.

We're all outraged by it, but I'm more concerned about Congress using its power to target a small group of people who happen to be hated at the moment.

But that legislation was just one item on Engel's always-busy Washington agenda. He does need that nice pad in Maryland after a hard day in the capital.

Such as last month, when Engel spent an entire day camped out in an aisle seat before Obama's State of the Union address, to make sure he got to shake the President's hand on television.

"I've been doing this since I've been in Congress; it's 20 years now and they were a little tough," he said the day after. "They kept threatening to confiscate our material that we left on our seats but, you know, you're able to get a little bit of a break, a bathroom break, a lunch break. We were all able to watch out for each other." poshaugnessy@nydailynews.com